The altar has the traditional shape of a winged altarpiece. The
outside, the weekday side, displays a workshop production of an
Annunciation and the former standing figures of saints Catherine and
Barbara. When opened, the magnificent colours of the Nativity are
visible, framed by saints George and Eustace.

This triptych was commissioned by the brothers Stephan and Lukas
Paumgartner for St Catherine's Church in Nuremberg. It may well have
been ordered after Stephan's safe return from a pilgrimage to
Jerusalem in 1498. The main panel depicts the Nativity, set in an
architectural ruin. The left wing shows St George with a fearsome
dragon and the right wing St Eustace, with both saints dressed as
knights and holding identifying banners. A seventeenth-century
manuscript records that the side panels were painted in 1498 and
that the two saints were given the features of the Paumgartner
brothers (with Stephan on the left and Lukas on the right). This is
the earliest occasion on which an artist is known to have used the
facial features of a donor in depicting a saint. The exteriors of
the wing panels were of the Annunciation, although only the figure
of the Virgin on the left panel has survived.

On stylistic grounds, the Nativity was painted a few years later
than the wings, probably in 1502 or soon afterwards. The tiny body
of Christ is almost lost in the composition, surrounded by a swarm
of little angels. Peering out from behind the Romanesque columns on
the right are the ox and the ass, while opposite them on the left
side are the faces of two shepherds. The composition, formed by the
ruins of a palatial building, draws the eye towards the archway. Two
other shepherds step up into the courtyard, the red and blue of
their clothes echoing the colours of Joseph and the Virgin Mary. In
the sky, an angel descends to reveal news of Christ's birth to
another pair of shepherds tending their flock on the distant
hillside. Although traditionally a night-time scene, it is brightly
illuminated by a ball of light in the sky.

The small figures at the bottom corners of the central panel are the
Paumgartner family with their coats of arms. They were painted over
in the seventeenth century, when donor portraits went out of favour,
and were only uncovered during restoration in 1903. On the left
behind Joseph are the male members of the family, Martin Paumgartner,
followed by his two sons Lukas and Stephan and an elderly bearded
figure who may be Hans Schцnbach, second husband of Barbara
Paumgartner. On the far right is Barbara Paumgartner (nйe Volckamer),
with her daughters Maria and Barbara.

In 1988 this painting was seriously damaged by a vandal, along with
the Lamentation for Christ and the central panel of The Seven
Sorrows of the Virgin depicting the grieving Mary. Restoration of
the Paumgartner Altarpiece and the Lamentation for Christ was
completed in 1998 and work then began on the panel of the Virgin.